Exchange of Play in Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom
“What we need is not great works but playful ones . . . A story is a game someone has
played so you can play it too” (56-57), Ronald Sukenick claims in his book, The Death of the
Novel and Other Stories, and one thing to be said about Wes Anderson’s 2011 film Moonrise
Kingdom, is that it captures the entire essence of the word “playful.” In his film, Anderson
creates an extremely elaborate, yet entirely fictional world on the 16-mile island of New
Penzance. Within Anderson’s whimsical world, twelve-year-olds Sam and Suzy plot to run away
together and establish their own little kingdom on the shore of 3.25-mile tidal inlet of the
Chickchaw migration trail. Delving even further, in Sam and Suzy’s kingdom sits a yellow
suitcase full of stolen library books—each pertaining to alternate worlds, universes, or kingdoms
of their own. Anderson’s elaborate layering of realms becomes metafictional; combined with the
inclusion of the fantasy books within the film’s make-believe world and an interactive narrator,
his auteur consistently calls attention to the fact that the film is a work of fiction. Anderson
creates a film that examines the extent in which “we each ‘play’ our own realities,” and
ultimately encourages the audience to not only participate in this exchange of play, but also to
engage in creation of their own (Waugh 35).
According to Patricia Waugh, “Metafiction is a term given to a fictional writing which
self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in order to pose
questions about the relationship of fiction to reality” (2). While Moonrise Kingdom may not
technically be in writing, Anderson shapes his film so that it reads as a work of literature. In an
interview, Anderson comments, “Over the course of [packing Suzy’s suitcase] I started thinking
that the movie ought to feel like it could be in that suitcase and could be one of these young adult
fantasy books.” Anderson crafts his film in such a way that the viewers are never “deluded into
believing” that real-life is taking place; he “[constructs] an alternative reality by manipulating the
relation between a set of signs as ‘message’ and the context or frame of that message” (Waugh
35). His fanciful world constantly seems to “[carry] the more or less explicit message: ‘this is
make-believe’ or ‘this is play’” (Waugh 35). Anderson’s film highlights the value of engaging in
pretend play; he acknowledges that “play is facilitated by rules and roles, and [that] metafiction
operates by exploring fictional rules to discover the role of fictions in life” (Waugh 35).
Wes Anderson possesses a very unique auteur, which plays an essential role in his
metafictional process. His doll-house-style sets and perfection of the dolly shot are only a small
part of the overall grandeur of style that has so iconically defined him over the expanse of his
film career; Moonrise Kingdom proves to be a prime example of his unique design. As
Guillaume Campeau-Dupras, a professor of cinema at Cégep Marie-Victorin, notes in his initial
draft of “ Notes on style and narration in Moonrise Kingdom,” Wes Anderson devotes much of
his film to the “planimetric shot,” which “means that the camera stays straight in front of its
subjects with the walls right behind them.” David Bordwell, a film theorist, compares the
imagery of this shot to “characters strung across the frame like clothes on a line.” This style of
shot stands out so distantly to Anderson because most filmmakers generally try to avoid it; the
planimetric shot endangers the “invisibility of the camera” and tends to come across as “flat or
static” (Campeau-Dupras). Anderson uses planimetric shots to reveal his characters awareness of
the camera, and he also makes the viewers aware of the manipulation of the mise-en-scène. Shot
after shot, the characters and objects within the frame are carefully and meticulously posed as if
they were paper dolls. For instance, the khaki scouts unnaturally sit on a single side of a long
table for their breakfast. Positioned in a line, they all face the camera. Through this Anderson
creates a “linear universe” (Campeau-Dupras). Anderson continuously composes shots that are
“static and frontal, where characters seem line up one against the others in a very squared
manner, or where the compositions tends to favor horizontal or vertical lines instead of
diagonals” (Campeau-Dupras). He uses this unconventional film imagery to place an emphasis
on his overall control of the character’s placement—and their role—in the film. When Sam and
Suzy are discovered on the beach, the Bishop family, Scout Master Ward, and Captain sharp all
line up in a layered and artful fashion that results in a very two-dimensional feel. The shots have
readability—he lays out little bits of information for the viewer to take in piece by piece. He also
consistently utilizes a technique called the “god’s eye close-up,” which is an angle “looking
directly down on something from what seems to be god’s point of view… [that] usually shows
what the characters in the film are looking at or touching” and mimics God looking down on his
creation (Martin 63). This technique is used to present the contents of Suzy’s suitcase, the letters
that were exchanged between the 12-year-olds, Sam’s watercolors, and the maps used throughout
the film. This allows the audience to see the items presented in the god’s eye close-up as tangible
creations within Anderson’s contrived world.
To further emphasize the readability and linear perspective, Anderson makes use of
“lateral traveling,” where the camera moves horizontally on a dolly instead of moving towards
the subject. Often Anderson’s dolly shots follow the path of left to right, which literally mimics
the process of reading a book—instead of words on a page, Anderson forces viewers to read the
signs in his film. Even when the camera swivels around the surroundings appear to be linear and
lack depth. The characters, setting, and props almost appear to be like the illustrations in
children’s books. An overwhelming tone of control is present within these scenes; Anderson
seems to be playing with characters as if they were actually dolls in his imaginary island of New
Penzance—and he is inviting the audience to play with him.
Anderson pours an immense amount of detail into every frame of his film. From the
badges on Sam’s uniform, to the face of the Khaki Scout’s Head Quarters on the stamps of the
stationary, he hides little tidbits and secrets throughout the film so elaborately that viewers can
discover something new almost every time the movie is re-watched. Because Anderson packs
his world with so much detail, he often manipulates and directs the viewers’ attention to
emphasize his ability to not only play with the characters within his film, but also with the
audience. For instance, when Sam and Suzy meet in the meadow, they stand almost completely
still while a windmill spins perfectly in the middle off in the distance behind them. The windmill
has been there the entire time, but it is not the primary focus or even initially noticeable. Another
instance of this happens when Sam goes in the corridors of the church in search of Suzy. While
the audience focuses on the left of the frame where children sit perfectly positioned on the
staircase playing recorders off-key, Sam walks by, ignoring them, and instead turns on the water
fountain situated on the right of the frame without actually drinking from it. The water fountain
is practically invisible before Sam activates it; this “seems to be used only for play, to
acknowledge the right side of the frame that was once empty at this moment, to make something
happen on this side where nothing had happened yet” (Campeau-Dupras). Another instance is
when Cousin Ben insists that Sam and Suzy discuss the weighty decision of marriage; the two
youngsters step aside and begin to talk. They proceed to chat in the bottom left corner of the
frame, and on the right side of the frame a Khaki Scout jumps over a balcony onto a trampoline.
The noises of flipping and bouncing beside them drown out the conversation. Anderson
“activates” both sides of the frames in a playful and unconventional way. The audience’s eyes
can never be sure of where exactly to look; Anderson makes the viewer “[discover] at the end of
a shot what [he or she] should have seen first” (Campeau-Dupras). Through Anderson’s
application of this technique, the audience can perceive that “somebody is playing with [them]…
and that it seems like a pure perceptual game, where [they] are looking at those shots unfolding
themselves” (Campeau-Dupras). While there is an aspect of discovery by the spectators of the
film, a more important aspect is that those things were intentionally put there to be discovered, to
be perceived, and ultimately to be played with.
In order to further the metafictional aspects of the film, Anderson plays with the viewer’s
suspension of disbelief. This concept is when the audience “know[s] that what [they are
watching] is not ‘real’, but [they] suppress the knowledge in order to increase enjoyment”
(Waugh 33). Anderson continuously goes against this conventional relationship by employing it
against itself, and “instead of reinforcing [the viewer’s] sense of a continuous reality, [he] splits
it open, to expose the levels of illusion”; he forces the audience to “recall that [their] ‘real’ world
can never be the ‘real’ world of the [film]” (Waugh 33). Matt Herzog discusses this technique in
his article “‘Does This Seem Fake?’: Wes Anderson's Kingdom Of Visual Absurdity,” by
pointing out specific scenes where Anderson reminds the audience that what they are watching is
entirely outside the realm of reality. Whether it is a “a young boy running from his scout troop
[to] be suddenly struck by cartoonish lightning to no serious injury,” or Scout master Ward
heroically jumping across the rushing waters from a burning tent with an injured man in his
arms, these “comically over-the- top manner[s] blatantly call attention to [the film’s]
artificiality” (Herzog 66). Even the top-heavy and absurdly tall tree house barely holding onto
the peak of skinny pine tree during the first Khaki Scout scene immediately calls viewers to
acknowledge the unrealistic qualities of Anderson’s make-believe world. The grand-finale of the
film with Captain Sharp, Sam, and Suzy dangling off of the church steeple in the midst of a
lightning storm and still surviving continues to emphasize this. As soon as the audience begins to
suspend their disbelief, Anderson throws something with just the right amount of whimsy and
absurdity to draw them back into his realm of fiction. Instead of attempting to blur the lines
between fiction and reality, Anderson plays with and pushes the boundaries of the viewers’
perceptions.
Anderson constantly draws attention to “theory of fiction through the practice of [crafting
and creating] fiction” with filmmaking; the narrative structure of Moonrise Kingdom along with
the absence of a true “fourth wall” highlights this. Throughout the film, there are several
instances of characters breaking the fourth wall, which allows the audience to engage in the
story. Within the opening sequence of the film, as Suzy walks outside to check the mail, she
proceeds to sit at the bus stop, read a letter from Sam Shukusky, and briefly peer into the camera.
Her secretive glare at the audience beckons viewers to acknowledge the exchange of play
beginning to take place within the film. Just as Suzy says the deer “knows someone’s watching
him” (Moonrise Kingdom) as she peers through her binoculars, the characters in the film seem to
know they are being watched which practically eliminates a separation between the audience and
the action. The narrator, who also doubles as the local librarian, serves as another intriguing
example of Anderson playing with the concept of the fourth-wall. After the opening sequence at
the Bishop house, a map appears on the screen while the narrator begins to set the scene—he’s
looking directly into the camera just as Suzy did seconds before. He then describes the island as
the scenery changes behind him, and he ends his first narrative point by saying, “The year is
1965. We are on the far edge of Black Beacon Sound, famous for the ferocious and welldocumented storm which will strike from the east on the fifth of September—in three day’s
time” (Moonrise Kingdom). His omniscience of an event that has yet to take place immediately
sets him apart as the narrator; his presence within the film initially calls attention to Moonrise
Kingdom as a piece of literature. However, Anderson complicates this by allowing him to
interact with the characters and ultimately play a part in the plot progression instead of merely
narrating it. At the midpoint of the movie, as tensions are building, and the adults are becoming
aggressive against one another, a voice is heard off-screen yelling, “Excuse me!” (Moonrise
Kingdom). Everyone stops the action to turn their attention to the gnome-like narrator who
proceeds to say, “As some of you know, I taught Sam for the cartography Accomplishment
Patch… What I’m getting at is this: I think I know where they’re going,” (Moonrise Kingdom)
and he pulls out a map showing the 3.25-mile tidal inlet. His abrupt interjection to the story
serves to remind the audience that Anderson constructs the narrator just as he does the other
characters—there is no part of this film that was not intentionally crafted by its creator.
Additionally, one of the most elaborate creations Anderson instills in film dwells in
Suzy’s chunky yellow suitcase that she carries along with her when she runs away from home.
While doing inventory, Sam discovers that she packed it full of stolen library books. These
novels serve as the most apparent sign of metaficionality within Moonrise Kingdom. Each one of
these books is fictional in multiple ways. First, Anderson created them for Suzy’s suitcase; the
books do not exist outside the realm of the film. In an interview Anderson said, “I sort of wrote a
little paragraph of text from each book because she reads them, and then we had different artists
draw the covers, and we sort of invented this little series of books.” Second, the books
themselves are works of fiction; Suzy tells Sam, “These are my books. I like stories with magic
powers in them. Either in kingdoms on earth or on foreign planets” (Moonrise Kingdom).
Scattered throughout the film, Suzy reads from these different books to both Sam and the Khaki
Scouts. Each of them is entirely separate, but all are dealing with the idea of leaving one’s
current situation, disappearing, living on a different planet, or establishing a new kingdom.
Anderson crafts these so that Sam and Suzy’s narrative of running away from their less than
desirable situations to create their own “Moonrise Kingdom” fits in perfectly alongside the other
narratives as if were a young adult novel itself. This once again draws attention to the story of
these two adolescents as one of fiction. In an interesting twist, within Anderson’s overall story,
the characters aim to create story of their own. While creating their own story, they literally carry
with them these other stories—works of fiction that ultimately inspire them to create their own
“kingdom.”
This layering of worlds, or layering of fictions, shows the depth of how Anderson
metafictionally manipulates his own alternate reality—he makes his process known. He uses
“play as a means of discovering new communicative possibilities,” which allows viewers to
“discover how they can manipulate behavior and contexts” (Waugh 36) in their own realities just
as Anderson has done in his alternate reality. The storybook presentation of his imaginary,
quirky world cues a semiotic reading of even the tiniest of details. Overall, these signs and
signals combine to create extensive levels of fiction, which ultimately comments on the process
and practice of creating fiction itself. According to Waugh, “All play and fiction require levels
which explain the transition from one context to another and set up a hierarchy of contexts and
meanings. In metafiction this level is foregrounded to a considerable extent because the main
concern of metafiction is precisely the implications of the shift from the context of ‘reality’ to
that of ‘fiction’ and the complicated interpenetration of the two” (36). Andersons complex
complications within his own fictions serve to question the complex complications of reality, and
bring attentions to the fictions in the viewers’ own realities.
Works Cited
Bordwell, David. "Shot-consciousness." Observations on Film Art. 16 Jan. 2007. Web. 2 Dec.
2015.
Campeau-Dupras, Guillaume. "Notes on Style and Narration in Moonrise Kingdom" Film
Look. 8 Aug. 2012. Web. 2 Dec. 2015.
Herzog, Matt. "'Does This Seem Fake?': Wes Anderson's Kingdom Of Visual Absurdity." Film
Matters 5.2 (2014): 66-67. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 2 Dec. 2015.
Martin, Richard F. "The Evolution Of Wes Anderson's Cinematography." Film Matters 5.2
(2014): 63-65. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 2 Dec. 2015.
Moonrise Kingdom. Dir. Wes Anderson. Focus Features, 2012. Film.
Sukenick, Ronald. The Death of the Novel and Other Stories. Dial, 1969. Print.
Waugh, Patricia. Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious. Florence, KY, USA:
Routledge, 1984. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 15 November 2015.
"Wes Anderson, Creating A Singular 'Kingdom'" Fresh Air. David Bianculli. NPR, 15 Feb.
2013. Radio.